402 



ON TURNING OUT YOUNG FISH. 



As the spring comes on and the weather gets warmer, it 

 wall be absolutely necessary that your fry should be 

 turned out. There are two ways of doing this. First, 

 either turn them out direct into the streams which you 

 intend to stock ; or secondly, keep them in nurseries until 

 they are " yearlings," or even two or three years old. 



If you have a large number of fry, I certainly advise 

 that the greater part of them should be turned out at 

 once in the open stream. This is so important an 

 operation that you must not trust it to anybody. Find 

 some tributaries — either brooks, rivulets, &c. — con- 

 nected with the stream you wish to stock ; place your 

 fry in a carrier, and w^alk doioi the stream, sowing it 

 (as it were) with five to twelve living fish every ten or 

 twelve yards. 



Before you let your fish loose in the stream, con- 

 struct with the pebbles at the bottom of the stream, or 

 with a couple of bricks and a roof slate, hides for the 

 fish. The fish should be caught out of the can by 

 means of a small net made of cap netting and w^ire ; 

 sink the net with the fish very quietly into the water 

 below the hide which you have built, and if you do 

 this without hurry and with care, the chances are that 

 the fish will immediately dart under the hide, which 

 they will at once take to as a comfortable and secure 

 home. The water in the brooks or rivulets where you 

 turn out the fish should not be too raj)id, and should 

 have quiet eddies here and there. The little fish wdll 

 soon make themselves at home in the brooks, espe- 

 cially if the water is not more than from three to 

 six inches deep. About six inches is the depth which 

 I prefer to turn out my fry. If bushes and trees over- 



